Delegates of the United Nations made in Bayreuth

The National Model United Nations (NMUN) conference is the world's largest simulation conference of the United Nations. Every year, around 5,000 students from over 100 UN member states take part in order to slip into the roles of diplomats, represent an assigned country and simulate negotiation processes. A delegation of thirteen students from the University of Bayreuth also took part in the five-day conference in April 2024.

Careful familiarization with the world of the United Nations began six months earlier. In addition to guest lectures, this included seminars in which the participants not only internalized the UN's procedures, but also learned essential skills for a convincing appearance.

After intensive theoretical and practical training, the first acid test followed: the students traveled to various MUN conferences throughout Europe and beyond - from Ljubljana to London, Istanbul and Nuremberg. There, they took on the roles of delegates for the first time, representing different political views and campaigning for the convictions of the countries assigned to them.

Together with Andreas Trauner, BayMUN Faculty Advisor and research assistant at the Chair of Finance at the University of Bayreuth, the group then traveled to New York for two weeks. At the NMUN, the Bayreuth delegation represented Ethiopia - a country whose politics, economy and culture are very different from those of Germany. To optimally prepare for this task, the students held a Q&A session in advance with the Ethiopia expert Bantayehu Demlie Gezahegn, a doctoral candidate in law at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. The Bayreuth delegation also visited the Permanent Observer Mission of the African Union in New York, where the students were able to ask further questions during a personal meeting with Ambassador Fatima Kyari Mohammed. A visit to the German Consulate General with lunch on the 30th floor - schnitzel, of course - was also one of the highlights.

With the start of the NMUN conference in the second week in New York, it was time to put what they had learned into practice: giving speeches in front of hundreds of people, discussing, negotiating, gaining allies and introducing their own ideas in resolutions. The students' efforts and commitment finally culminated in the presentation of the “Distinguished Delegation” award, the second highest award at the NMUN, at the closing event in the General Assembly at UN headquarters. A jury assessed the delegations in terms of their active participation in the conference, professionalism, diplomatic values and compliance with the rules of procedure.

The “Distinguished Delegation” award was not the only award that the delegation received at the NMUN conference. In preparation for a MUN conference, the delegates write so-called position papers: scientific papers in which the position of the represented country on the topics in the respective committee is presented. For their outstanding contributions to the Commission for Social Development (CSocD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Nicola Bretschneider, a law student with integrated additional training in economics, and Christopher Grell, a law and business studies student, received individual awards.

"The farewell event in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations with thousands of students from all over the world is always the crowning glory after an exciting and busy semester of preparation and our time in New York. Our delegation can be very proud of itself,” concludes Andreas Trauner.